Mayor Rob Ford has apologized for the “unforgivable language” he used on Thursday, but is standing firm that the new allegations that he partied with a prostitute and snorted cocaine are “100 per cent lies.”

In a hastily assembled news conference in the mayor’s protocol lounge, Ford said the recent revelations “of cocaine, escorts, prostitution” have pushed him “over the line.”

“I used unforgivable language, and again, I apologize,” he said. “These allegations are 100 per cent lies. When you attack my integrity as a father and as a husband, I see red.”

With his wife Renata by his side, Ford told reporters he is “receiving support from a team of health care professionals,” but said “I do not wish to comment on the particulars of this support.”

“I fully realize in the past I have drank alcohol in excess,” he said. “I am taking accountability and receiving advice from people with expertise . . . I wish you to understand I am accepting responsibility for the challenges I face.”

The mayor did not take any questions. After his brief remarks he pushed through the crush of reporters to the elevator outside his office.

The news conference came after his remarks earlier in the day, when Ford threatened to sue former staffers as he left his office. But it was his reference to allegations of oral sex with a former staff member that sent shock waves through the city.

Ford said he didn’t party with a prostitute, he didn’t snort cocaine, he didn’t take OxyContin and he plans to sue former staffers who told police he did.

“I might have had some drinks and driven which is absolutely wrong,” Toronto’s embattled mayor conceded in an impromptu scrum.

But it was his comments about allegations in court documents released Wednesday that he had claimed to have been intimate with former policy adviser Olivia Gondek that stunned reporters.

“It says I wanted to eat her pussy and I have never said that in my life to her. I would never do that. I’m happily married and I’ve got more than enough to eat at home,” he said before heading up to council.

The mayor took aim at former staffers Isaac Ransom, George Christopoulos and Mark Towhey in particular, and said his unwillingness to speak before about the allegations contained in censored parts of police documents Wednesday was because he hadn’t yet read them.

“I’ve . . . never had a prostitute here. I’m very happily married at home, this is very disturbing against my wife,” Ford told reporters.

“I have no other choice. I’m the last one to take legal action, I can’t put up with it anymore.”

Although many councillors have stated repeatedly they are no longer surprised by the controversy surrounding the mayor, his comments Thursday morning clearly left some of them taken aback.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, who was behind Wednesday’s symbolic motion asking Ford to take a leave of absence, said he is now demanding the mayor’s resignation.

One of the mayor’s few allies, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, issued an ultimatum, stating he would join calls for Ford to resign if he did not seek help for his alleged drug and alcohol addiction by day’s end.

Ford’s apology did little to sway them.

“There’s nothing that he could say now that will be acceptable to me anymore. This is too much . . . apologies don’t cut it,” Minnan-Wong said. “The mayor needs to resign. He needs to step aside. This has to end, and the province has to step in, because council cannot remove him.”

Councillor Paula Fletcher said she is “very shaken from the earlier remarks.”

“I know the man is under tremendous pressure and that’s why so many of us have said, ‘Get out, get help, get out of the spotlight . . . or something terrible is going to happen,’ ” Fletcher said. “Something terrible did happen today. Those remarks were probably the worst remarks that any mayor has ever made in the history of this city.”

Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon said the mayor’s mouth “needs to be duct taped.”

“My heart goes out to his family, his wife, his kids. I can’t imagine what they’re going through, but enough is enough,” she said. “We can’t even take him seriously in the council chamber or the city. He cannot be trusted with anything.”

Speaking to reporters in council chambers, Councillor Janet Davis described the mayor as “one of the most stubborn, pigheaded people . . . we’ve ever come across.”

“The executive (committee) needs to say very clearly, ‘We’re putting a wall around you, Mr. Mayor. We will not deal with your office or you in this budget,’ ” she said. “This council is going to be accountable for the budget. The executive is going to be accountable to council. Let’s put a firewall around the mayor. He has no legitimacy here.”

Mammoliti, who was among those assembled in the mayor’s protocol lounge for the apology was more forgiving.

“I think what you heard from him in referring to health care officials was a willingness to talk about the issues that are causing him a problem,” he said. “I hope that the next thing that comes from the mayor is the recognition that it’s an addiction.”

He said the mayor’s decision to forcefully push through the large crowd of reporters following the news conference is proof that “we are dealing with this in the wrong way.”

“You don’t throw an addict into a fray,” he said. “All they do is get their back up against the wall and retaliate, and what you’re seeing is the mayor doing that.”

Earlier on Thursday, Mammoliti said he and Towhey, the mayor’s former chief of staff, tried unsuccessfully to get Ford help for addiction to drugs and alcohol a year ago, but the mayor “said he didn’t have a problem and not to worry about it.”

It is time, Mammoliti said, that Ford and his family recognize he has an issue.

“Now he’s probably going to lose everything — probably his family, probably his job — all of it, because he’s not recognizing his illness,” Mammoliti said.

Renata Ford declined to speak with reporters after her rare public appearance at the mayor’s news conference.

Ford’s brother, Doug, usually the mayor’s most outspoken ally, ignored questions from reporters on Thursday morning.

If the mayor follows through on his plans to file a lawsuit, he will face an uphill battle, according to media lawyer Iain MacKinnon.

“Anything is possible when it comes to Ford, but any lawsuit on that basis would be doomed to fail,” MacKinnon said. “The staffers would have an excellent defence of qualified privilege.

“The idea is that society wants to encourage people to speak honestly and candidly in certain situations when they have a legal or moral duty to talk. Giving statements to police during a police investigation is one such occasion.”

Toronto lawyer Brian Shiller told the Star he is offering to represent “all of the proposed defendants in Mayor Ford’s anticipated lawsuit on a pro bono basis.”

“It is important that a signal is sent that the citizens of Toronto will not be intimidated by the mayor of Toronto from co-operating with the police in an investigation into potential wrongdoing by the leader of this great city,” he said.